


The Serbian Tennis Players' Book Appreciation Society, Membership: Two

by meretricula



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-29
Updated: 2010-10-29
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:10:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meretricula/pseuds/meretricula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which it is absolutely, indisputably and beyond a shadow of doubt all Ana Ivanovic's fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Serbian Tennis Players' Book Appreciation Society, Membership: Two

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @[Noleksa](http://twitter.com/#!/Noleksa) for checking my Serbian! And the Spanish text is obviously not mine; the translation I used can be found [here](http://www.bibliotecasvirtuales.com/biblioteca/OtrosAutoresdelaLiteraturaUniversal/JaneAusten/OrgulloyPrejuicio/index.asp).

It started mainly because Novak got bored on planes. He flipped through the in-flight magazines, he fiddled with his iPod, he fidgeted. He tried to talk to whoever was sitting next to him. Marian just wanted to sleep until they got wherever they were going, and it drove him _crazy_. "Why don't you read a goddamn _book_ ," he snapped finally, on one particularly excruciating flight, and since Novak didn't like to piss Marian off (at least not unintentionally), he ran into one of the little magazines-and-candy stores in the airport while they were waiting for a connecting flight, and grabbed a book at random off the shelf.

It was an interesting book, actually, although at that point he probably would have read it even if it had turned out to consist of nothing but the backs of cereal boxes. Novak started it in English because that was what they had in the store, and then the next time he was in Serbia he remembered to grab a translated copy in an actual bookstore, and it kept him busy for a few more trips. The next problem arose when he finished it.

"This is a really interesting book," he tried to tell Marian. Marian opened his eyes and glared.

"I am sleeping," he said. "Leave me alone."

"But I want to talk about my book," Novak said.

"I should have known better than to sit next to you," Marian muttered. "Go bother someone else. Someone your age, who doesn't need his sleep."

Novak made a face and dug out the in-flight magazine. Someone had already half-finished the crossword, in ink. At least it was a short trip.

*

The tournament they were flying to was mixed, so he went out to dinner with Ana that night. It was kind of weird; they were in the same sport and from the same country but they never seemed to see each other unless they made the effort. Dinner was nice, though. Ana seemed a little stressed but she was always fun to talk to. "Tell me something that's not about tennis," she said, over decaf coffee, because they both needed to be up early for practice the next day. They'd already discussed their brothers and their respective love-lives, so that limited work-unrelated conversation a little.

"I read this really good book," Novak started, before he realized that it probably wasn't something Ana was interested in. Stereotypes were terrible and unfair and so on, but in Novak's experience, professional athletes really didn't read much.

"What was it about?" Ana asked, smiling. "No, come on, you can't just leave me hanging like this!" she added, when Novak sort of flapped his hands at her instead of answering. "Now I'm curious."

"I've still got it in my suitcase, if you want to borrow it," Novak offered, unsure if she was just humoring him.

"Yes, please," Ana said. "I need something good to read while I'm getting treatment anyway."

*

"I don't know if I agree with his ideas about the Unmanifested," Ana announced a few days later, dropping down onto the couch beside Novak in the players lounge. Novak blinked.

"Is it the terminology or the concept you don't like?" he asked at last. "I thought it was a pretty interesting idea, myself."

"It's not about liking or not liking," Ana said, frowning. "I _liked_ it. I just don't know if I agree with it."

"Oh. Well - "

"What are you guys talking about?" Vik asked. He was playing cards with his physio at a table a few feet away.

"A book," Novak and Ana said in unison.

"Oh," Viktor said, nose wrinkling, and turned back to his card game. Novak rolled his eyes.

"Look, I've got practice in like five minutes," he said to Ana. "But can I call you later? I'd really like to talk about the book more."

"Sure!" Ana beamed at him, and he remembered that she'd told him once, a couple years ago, that she didn't have all that many friends on the women's tour. "But look, you really need to read some Freud to understand where I'm coming from. I'll pick up something for you in the bookstore and drop it off with your team when I have the chance."

He and Ana both got knocked out of the tournament that afternoon and Novak didn't get a chance to see her before she left, but when he came back from dinner there was a plastic bag with the label of a local bookstore hanging from his door. The receipt was still inside the book; Ana had scrawled _Read it!!!_ on the back in Serbian. Nole shrugged and tucked it into one of the outer pockets of his tennis bag, so he would be able to get at it on the plane.

*

The thing was, Novak loved reading and he loved talking to Ana about what they were reading, but their taste in books didn't always overlap too much. He wanted to read biographies, she wanted to read philosophy and psychology and political science, and while he didn't mind any of that, the sad fact of the matter was that if you looked at a Venn diagram of their reading material, the oval containing things they both wanted to read could also be labeled "really really depressing books". Novak thought about inviting Janko to join them (Vik still thought he and Ana were both crazy and refused to even let them talk about books while he was in the room) just to get a little variety in their book selection, but when he mentioned it to Ana, she looked dubious and said, "You want to read _Dostoevsky_?" which was… well. Kind of a good point, when he thought about it. Also, Janko was fun, but kind of crazy.

All of which was fine, except he and Ana were both at a certain point in their careers where, unfortunately, the _last_ thing they needed was to depress themselves further with the books they read. Life was depressing enough when you'd apparently forgotten how to fucking _serve_.

*

When Ana handed over her latest selection, she'd taken off the dustjacket so that it looked completely anonymous, which should have warned Novak that something was up. "You have to give it a chance," she said quickly, which was another clue. "Promise that you'll read it. I really liked it."

"Okay?" Novak said. "Look, I read Marx, didn't I? I'm not going to give up just because it's boring."

"Promise!" Ana insisted.

"I promise, I promise, God. What is this, anyway?" He opened the book to the title page. " _Гордост и предрасуде_?"

"You'll like it, it isn't boring," Ana said, and looked relieved when her mother came over to tell her that her practice court was free. "I'll talk to you later! Read the book!"

*

He didn't get a chance to start the book until he was on the plane to the next tournament, but Ana was right about one thing - it wasn't boring.

*

"Noleeeeeeeeeeee," Rafa said, and flopped down on the bed beside Novak. "Nole, stop be so boring."

"Just let me finish this chapter, okay," Novak said, and pushed his glasses further up his nose. "I'm almost done with - GAH!" He swatted ineffectually at Rafa's hands, which were sliding under his shirt. "In a minute!" Rafa nuzzled at his throat, then bit right above his collarbone. Novak's dick chose that moment to remind him that he hadn't had sex with Rafa in over a month. "Okay, or now."

The book and his glasses both ended up on the floor.

*

"Okay, so, not that I mind the sex," Novak said a few days later. "But you have knocked my glasses off the bed three nights in a row, and sooner or later they're going to break."

"Mm-hmm," said Rafa, clearly not paying attention, and pulled off Novak's glasses yet again as he leaned in for a kiss. Novak grabbed his wrist.

"Look, stop _doing_ that. I need those to read, okay?"

Rafa made a disgruntled face, and Novak resolutely remained uncharmed. "Always reading, so boring, no? Anyway, what book is this?"

Novak tried to dredge up the Spanish that Rafa occasionally insisted on teaching him. (Rafa claimed it was because Novak was better at languages. Novak was pretty sure it was because Rafa was too damn lazy to try learning Serbian.) "You'd say, uh… _Orgullo y_ … something. I don't know the word in Spanish."

" _Orgullo y Prejuicio_? For serious?" Rafa rolled his eyes. "Is the book with too many sisters, no? And the pretty one, she argue with Darcy half the book, then she marry him. Maribel love that movie, she make me watch with her at Christmas."

Novak stared at Rafa. Elizabeth had just embarked on what he thought was a fairly successful flirtation with Wickham when Rafa interrupted him, again. And Darcy was an ass. "I hate you so much right now."

"You don't know ending already?" Rafa blinked at him, a study in innocence. "Sorry. But now you don't need read rest of the book, no?" He grinned and settled Novak's glasses carefully back on his face. "Maybe you wear these for the sex this time."

"You ruined the end of _Pride and Prejudice_ so that you could have sex with me while I'm wearing my glasses," Novak said flatly. He contemplated throwing the book at Rafa's head - hardcover or not, no jury in the world would convict him so long as it was more than 50% female - but in the end decided to be the bigger person. "I'm going to go sleep in my own room."

*

Novak would have stayed angry for a while to make sure he'd gotten his point across, except it turned out that Rafa was really good at groveling (and also Novak wasn't going to pass up regular sex on the rare occasions that he could get it), so he thought he might as well be magnanimous and forgive him. He held firm on indulging Rafa's weird kink for his glasses, though, until Rafa showed up at his hotel room, apparently after some awkward multi-lingual consultation with Ana, with a really nice Spanish translation of _Pride and Prejudice_. "I think, maybe we can read together," Rafa said shyly. "Since you like so much."

*

"'Elizabeth estaba tan confusa que no podía hablar. Después de una corta pausa, su compañero añadió: ––Es usted demasiado generosa para burlarse de mí. Si sus sentimientos son aún los mismos que en el pasado abril, dígamelo de una vez. Mi cariño y mis deseos no han cambiado, pero con una sola palabra suya no volveré a insistir más.' Rafa, are you asleep already?"

"'m awake," Rafa insisted. "Read. Is my favorite part."

"I knew you were reading ahead," Novak muttered. "'Elizabeth, sintiéndose más torpe y más angustiada que nunca ante la situación de Darcy, hizo un esfuerzo para hablar en seguida, aunque no rápidamente, le dio a entender que sus sentimientos habían experimentado un cambio tan absoluto desde la época a la que él se refería, que ahora recibía con placer y gratitud sus proposiciones. La dicha que esta contestación proporcionó a Darcy fue la mayor de su existencia, y se expresó con todo el calor y la ternura que pueden suponerse en un hombre locamente enamorado. Si Elizabeth hubiese sido capaz de mirarle a los ojos, habría visto cuán bien se reflejaba en ellos la delicia que inundaba su corazón; pero podía escucharle, y los sentimientos que Darcy le confesaba y que le demostraban la importancia que ella tenía para él, hacían su cariño cada vez más valioso.'"

Rafa yawned enormously, and then adjusted the position of his head in Novak's lap so he could smile sheepishly up at him. "Maybe you right, I gonna sleep soon. We can finish tomorrow?"

Novak smiled back. "Yeah, we can finish it tomorrow. I don't know what I'm going to do after that," he added, putting the book and his glasses on the bedside table before he switched off the light. "I didn't think we'd read so fast, I don't have any other books with me."

"Mmm. I bring _La Ciudad de las Bestias_ for you tomorrow. Is in my bag. You will like."

"Yeah?" Novak asked. He lay down beside Rafa and extracted a sleepy kiss.

"Is my favorite book, of course you gonna like," Rafa mumbled, and was asleep before Novak could reply. Novak pressed one last kiss to his cheek, then closed his eyes and promptly followed suit.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Novak Djokovic [looks really good in glasses](http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a178/meretricula/NOVAK-GLASSES-2-novak-djokovic-11483139-800-600.jpg).  
> 2\. [Ana Ivanovic](http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/adam-tells-ana-stay-cool/story-e6frexni-1225813801271) and [Novak Djokovic](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99EoQiLBfQE) have both mentioned reading Eckhart Tolle's _The Power of Now_. I don't know if one of them gave it to the other but I wouldn't be surprised.   
>  3\. [Tennis players really don't read](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99EoQiLBfQE).   
> 4\. Janko Tipsarevic is indeed [fun, but kind of crazy](http://twitter.com/#!/tipsarevicjanko). (He also has a tattoo of a quote from Dostoevsky, although last anyone heard, he's taking a break from reading because [books are too depressing](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/wimbledon/2304435/Wimbledon-Janko-Tipsarevic-books-his-place.html).)  
> 5\. The part of _Pride and Prejudice_ that Novak is reading in the last scene, for those who don't speak Spanish (myself included!), is the bit at the very end where Elizabeth finally confesses to Darcy that she loves him.   
>  6\. Rafael Nadal's [favorite book](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99EoQiLBfQE) is _The City of the Beasts_ by Isabel Allende.  
>  7\. Blame Aramley. This is [all her fault](http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_tennis/74693.html?thread=6488517#t6488517).


End file.
